Happy Shiny Migraines

I’m not after any medical advice here (seriously, if one more person tells me ‘just drink more water’, no matter how well meaning, I am going to scratch their eyes out). I’m just having a bit of a vent.

I’ve suffered migraines since about the age of 13. Sometimes they have been more frequent than not. In addition to what I’d deem a ‘classic’ migraine, I’ve also suffered even more frequently from what I’ve always termed ‘sick headaches’ – where I wake up feverish, with an awful throbbing in my left temple, aching all over and unable to keep any food down. The doctors have recently told me that these are in fact ‘mini migraines’. At this point, I’m more convinced that these are what my more ‘classic’ migraines turn in to when I’m unable to beat them at the pass due to missing all the signs (sunspots, etc) due to being asleep.

Typically, when I get one of these, I’m out of action for at least a day – it’s approximately 12 hours until I’m able to keep any food or drink down, and about all I can do is sleep in a dark room and try to keep sips of water down. The next day I generally feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.

Anyways, I’ve been getting these ‘mini migraines’ (and classic migraine symptoms) more often in recent months. The doctor prescribed me some beta blockers, which helped a bit – but I’ve just spent the last 2 days out of action, as the vomiting did not stop.

On the doctors orders, I’ve been keeping detailed food diaries, sleep diaries, headache diaries. I’ve even added exercise diaries to this (as I figured I’d try to spin a positive on all this, and see if living a healthier lifestyle could help at all). Over the course of years, I’ve had blood tests, various tablets prescribed, cut down/cut out the more obvious things to no effect.

I’m at the end of my rope. I woke up this morning, on day 3 of having kept nothing down and feeling genuinely concerned that I was going to have to get myself to A&E for assistance in rehydrating. Fear not – I popped to the chemist, and a mix of anti-nausea and dioralyte seems to have fixed the vomiting issue for now. What’s really gotten me is how todays trip to the doctors went. My beta blocker dosage has been upped, some dissolve in the mouth pain killer tablets have been prescribed, and all my carefully maintained diaries have been completely ignored. Oh, but I have left the surgery with *more* print outs on the common causes of and treatment of migraines. Because I haven’t spent years looking at these kind of things, as I obviously love losing days of my life. Thanks.

I hate to admit it, but I burst into tears in the doctors surgery. This blog post is coming from a place of rage and pain, even while I acknowledge that migraines are bloody difficult to diagnose the cause of. But I can’t help but feel I’m being fobbed off, and after 2 days of sitting in a dark house, unable to keep food and water down, I’m feeling incredibly fed up and just done. 2 days off work, another day having to tell the bloke not to come around because I’m not up to cooking/eating/socialising. The doctor has told me that migraines are a chronic condition, and sometimes there is just no diagnosable underlying cause. Which could well be true, since I guess I haven’t keeled over and died from this yet.

I’m trying not to be too down. I’ve been back to google, and saw a recommendation to download Migraine Buddy, which I’ve done. It asks for similar information that I’ve already been logging, and seems to have the ability to correlate patterns, which could help me to self-diagnose my triggers. It looks like it could be really useful.

My main issue with it can be summed up in the below screenshot:

Congratulating me on starting a migraine diary hits the wrong note, I fear. I now feel stabby.

This is far too happy and fluffy. Migraines are not to be congratulated. This shit is taking days of my life from me. STOP BEING SO HAPPY AND SHINY IN THE FACE OF MY PAIN, YOU STUPID PHONE. *

* I may not be in the best frame of mind today. I apologise. No phones were harmed in the making of this post.

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2 thoughts on “Happy Shiny Migraines”

you obviously have an alien parasite growing in your head and after a short incubation you will turn into a Zombie. Trying wearing a tin foil hat so it cannot signal to it’s waiting invasion fleet and when it sticks it’s head out of your left ear hit it with a hammer ! the migraines should go though you might get head aches of a different sort Also a note of caution the subsequent damage to your ear drum could end up making you like Justin Bieber’s music.